Words from the pulpit of the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of the Palm Beaches, and other significant messages.

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Innkeeper, A Christmas Eve homily

And it came to
pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all
the world should be taxed. And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own
city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth,
unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem;To be taxed with Mary his wife, being great
with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were
accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn
son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because
there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were in
the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock
by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the
Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto
them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall
be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is
Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe
wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with
the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,"Glory to God in the highest, and on
earth peace, good will toward men."

Tonight, we are asked to reflect on
the story of Christmas, as transmitted through the centuries in scripture and
in popular culture. Tonight, we don’t need to debate its historical validity —
it is true enough as a story with power in our culture to shape the way we look
at the world.So let’s imagine the scene
— Mary and Joseph, head to Bethlehem,
Joseph’s ancestral home, for the Emperor’s census.Mary is late in her pregnancy, possibly even
in labor. Along with all of Joseph’s distant relatives, they seek shelter for
their stay — and since there are so many people who have come back to Bethlehem to be counted,
the normal guest rooms are all full. “Sorry,” they hear again and again, “I’ve
got no more room in my house for another guest.” And yet one of their
relatives, rather than turning them away, remembers that he has some room
downstairs, in the small alcove next to the stable, where the animals have been
brought inside for the winter.

“It’s all I have,” perhaps he says
to them, “but you can stay there if you want.”

Having nowhere else to go, and
knowing that the animals’ straw would be a softer bed than the ground, Joseph
and Mary take shelter where they can. And lucky, too, for it is here in this
less-than-ideal accommodation, that Mary gives birth. It is in this downstairs
room, a manger filled with hay substituting for a crib, that the baby Jesus
makes his appearance in the world.For
many over the intervening centuries, the story of Mary and Joseph’s desperate
search for shelter on a cold Bethlehem
night has been understood to be important to the story of Christmas. To some,
the important part was that Jesus needed to be rejected by the norms of society
so that he could stand outside of them.

Thomas Merton writes that “Into this
world, this demented inn, in which there is absolutely no room for him at all,
Christ has come uninvited. But because he cannot be at home in it -- because he
is out of place in it, and yet must be in it -- his place is with those others
who do not belong, who are rejected because they are regarded as weak; and with
those who are discredited, who are denied the status of persons, and are
tortured, exterminated. With those for whom there is no room, Christ is present
in this world.”

For others, though, the story takes
on a slightly different meaning. Judith Hoch-Wray asks us to think about this
story another way. “Perhaps,” she writes, “’no room in the inn’ was not a
rejection of the Christ child, but a gracious accommodation in the best
circumstances the family could provide.”

Tonight, let us think about this
story in starkly human terms. Joseph and Mary arrived after a long walk from Nazareth in Galilee,
tired, cold and in need of a place to stay. Though the conventional rooms
weren’t available someone — unnamed in the Scriptures, but is assumed to be the
innkeeper -- offered what space he had to them.Are we prepared to make that same offer? Are we prepared to share our
room — whatever we might have — with our relatives who are in need?

Are we
prepared to offer even our stable to those who might come wandering in the
night, cold and hungry?Are we prepared
to be the nameless relative with a full house who couldn’t let his distant
cousins, weary and pregnant, spend the night outside?

Morton also writes, “My
great-grandfather, it is said, opened his home on Christmas Eve. In the story
my grandmother tells, he invited people in to eat with his family. Not hundreds
— or even dozens — of homeless folks, mind you, but one or two every year, people
in the neighborhood without family or food, without someone to spend the
holiday with. People who had been turned away from other places because there
was no room for them. Without regard to race or ethnicity, they were invited to
partake in the feast set forth by my great-grandmother. This story, as it is
told in my family, has great power. As a child, I learned from this story to be
generous with whatever I had. I learned that there will always be enough. The
lessons society teaches us about fear and mistrust of those whom we do not know
are wrong. Christmas is found in the welcoming of the stranger into one’s
home.”

The need for shelter is a
fundamental human need. None of us ever knows for sure when we might be
uprooted and cast on the mercy of others. But how do we overcome our fear in
order to welcome and shelter a stranger? The Christian practice of hospitality
is the practice of providing a space to take in a stranger. It also encompasses
the skills of welcoming friends and family to our tables, to claim the joy of
homecoming. Our Unitarian Universalist ministry is very much about breaking
down society’s barriers that separate people, and to teach that there always
needs to be room for one more — at the table as much as at the inn.

So tonight, I’d like the Christmas
story to be a story of unexpected hospitality. A story of the grace of
generosity meeting the needs of two folks far from home, and allowing a baby to
come into the world whose life would change everything. Tonight, I ask you how you
can be present to those in this world for whom there is no room. How we, as a
community, can be an innkeeper andpresent for those who need a soft place to lay their weary heads. There
must be room enough for all. And we can make it so.

And it came to pass,
as the angels were gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds said one to
another, Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to
pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste and
found Mary and Joseph and the babe lying in a manger. And when they had seen
it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this
child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them
by the shepherds. But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her
heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the
things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.

Blessed be

Innkeeper, a sermon delivered on Dec
24, 2013 by the Rev. CJ McGregor and Max Thoman at 1stUUPB